Modiehi

A track by the South African quartet Marumo featured on the 2018 compilation album Mr Bongo Record Club Volume Three and was well enough received to persuade the label to release the full 1982 album from which it came. Yet while three minutes of Marumo's Westernised disco-funk was fine on a comp, to be brutally honest an entire album of it is hard to take. Slickly produced by West Nkosi – a legend of the South African music scene who in his time helmed records for everyone from the Mahotella Queens to Ladysmith Black Mambazo – several of the tracks on Modiehi are not just bad but execrable.

The opening title-track is the most offensive, a hideous pop-soul ballad that could have been SA's Eurovision entry had they been eligible – and there are several more that are really no better. The best moments come on the most explicitly Africansounding tracks, most of which were consigned to what was side two of the original vinyl. The bouncing mbaqanga rhythms of ‘Re a Hlophela’, ‘Bosiu Bona’, ‘Ke Eo Terene’ and ‘Siyahlupheka’ are great. But four OK tracks out of 12 is a poor return on an album that has not aged well.